Most Americans probably know friendly coworkers who let them know they’re helping their kids sell Girl Scout cookies or raise money for their schools and other good causes.
But it seems the crew of Blake Lively’s film “It Ends With Us” faced a unique form of pressure to part with their money when Lively, the film’s star and producer, let some of her four young children come onto the set and set up a booth to raise money for “sick children and horses,” the Daily Mail reports.
While it may seem kind of Lively to let her young children set up a fundraising booth, the fundraising effort was actually seen as “tone deaf,” according to a source close to the set who spoke to the Daily Mail. The “It Ends With Us” crew was returning to work for the first time in months after writers’ and actors’ strikes shut down many film and TV productions for much of 2023. The source said that not receiving regular paychecks for an extended period of time had forced some crew members to dip into their retirement savings to get by. Some were at risk of losing their homes.
“There’s nothing wrong with your kids being involved in your work or interested in activism,” the source told the Daily Mail. But she felt Lively’s handling of the situation was “insulting and performative.” Given her status on the production — presumably as the No. 1 on the call sheet — it’s also likely that the team felt she had to donate to keep the boss happy.
“Everyone was a little scared of Blake,” the source said.
According to the Daily Mail’s source, the Daily Mail article about Lively’s children’s fundraising activities on set is one of the ways the famous and powerful actor has allegedly irritated some members of the crew. The situation is also the latest in a series of reports that Lively is annoying, rude, insensitive or bossy. She has been embroiled in backlash since the beginning of the month over her star persona and her actions related to the production and promotion of “It Ends With Us.”
The Daily Mail did not specify which of Lively’s children came to the set to solicit donations. She has four children with “Deadpool” star Ryan Reynolds: three girls, ages 9, 7 and 4, and a baby boy, born in February.
The Daily Mail didn’t say so, but suggested that Lively’s “tone-deaf” handling of the situation may be due to the idea that she lives in a bubble of her own wealth and privilege. According to Celebrity Net Worth, her personal fortune is estimated at $30 million, which she has earned through her films, endorsement deals and various fashion and lifestyle businesses. With Reynolds, the couple has a combined net worth estimated at over $380 million.
But, according to the source, Lively’s handling of charity solicitations for her children wasn’t the only issue making her job difficult, or that seemed to fuel reported tensions between her and the film’s director and co-star, Justin Baldoni.
Lively may not have been intentionally “mean,” the source said. “She was just so effortlessly rude,” as well as “cocky” and lacking self-awareness, the source added. There was tension on set whenever the former “Gossip Girl” actress was around because she wasn’t shy about asking employees to “serve her,” the source also said.
Rumors of a feud between Lively and Baldoni sparked before, during and after the Aug. 6 premiere of “It Ends With Us.”
The set source said there was no “outside feud or fight” on set between Lively and Baldoni, but Lively could be “so extraordinarily opinionated” and have “very strong feelings about certain things” that it caused “stress and tension” on set, the source said.
“I felt like Justin was really stressed and tired because of this constant inability to control the project he was doing,” the source said. “So much so that when you asked him questions, he would say, ‘Well, just ask Blake’ … because when Blake came in, she had a lot of really strong thoughts and feelings.”
Lively also faced backlash online for her “clumsy” choice to publicly downplay the film’s serious narrative about domestic violence that her character experiences. The film is an adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s bestselling crime novel about domestic violence.
Lively has been criticized on social media for doing interviews and social media posts that promote the film as if it were a romantic comedy about a beautiful flower shop owner who has to choose between two handsome guys, or as if it were a bubbly “Barbie”-esque story about fashion and a woman’s journey of self-discovery. In one of the film’s most outrageous promotional pieces, Lively appears in a TikTok video encouraging female fans to turn a trip to the movie into a fun, bonding activity for women. She says, “Gather your friends, wear your flowers, and go see it.”
Some have also criticized Lively and Reynolds — a “master of shameless cross-promotion,” as the New York Times put it — for using “It Ends With Us” to sell the public on some of their side businesses, including Lively’s new hair-care line and Reynolds’ new “Deadpool & Wolverine” movie. The party after the “It Ends With Us” premiere included cocktails made with Lively’s alcoholic and nonalcoholic products and Reynolds’ Aviation gin, The Guardian reported.
Meanwhile, the on-set source said that Baldoni isn’t so easy to deal with either. In fact, he’s “a lot like (Lively) in the sense that he has to be the smartest person in the room,” the source also revealed.
The insider also questioned the extent to which Baldoni “expressed” her concern for the topic of domestic violence during interviews. While people criticized Lively for the flippant way she promoted the film, many praised Baldoni for speaking on the film’s red carpet as a tribute to those who have survived the pain and trauma of domestic violence. But the insider countered that some of Baldoni’s statements came across as those of a “woke, performative feminist.”
